Fresh crisis is brewing in the embattled All Peoples Grand Alliance (APGA), less than five months to the rescheduled gubernatorial election in Anambra State.
In the coming gubernatorial election, the party’s candidate, Governor Willie Obiano, is being challenged by many heavyweight opponents in other parties in the state election.
There are strong indications that APGA members and stakeholders have been hoping that the crisis-ridden party would be able to paper-over the cracks in its leadership ranks to enable it successfully prosecute the November 18th gubernatorial election in Anambra State.
However, such hopes, as our correspondent has found out, seem to be collapsing like a house of cards, following a ruling on Monday by an Enugu High Court, presided over by Hon Justice A.R Ozoemena.
The landmark ruling ousted Dr Victor Oye as the National Chairman of APGA while recognizing Ochudo Martin Agbaso as the new National Chairman of the party.
The Judge also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Police to ensure the implementation of the Court’s ruling.
Chief Agbaso, from Imo State, is an APGA foundation member, as well as an acolyte of the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, who founded the party.
Chief Agbaso was largely instrumental to the victory of Owelle Rochas Okorocha in 2011 over Governor Ikedi Ohakim under the APGA banner in Imo State.
The earliest indication of further deterioration in the fortunes of the party came from a release issued immediately after the verdict of the Enugu High Court by the National Publicity Secretary of the Oye faction of the party, Barrister Ifeatu Obi-Okoye, calling on the party and its members to discountenance the ruling of the Enugu High Court, which he described as a ‘kangaroo judgement’.
In the release, Barrister Obi-Okoye stated, inter alia, that: “On behalf of the national chairman of APGA, Dr Victor Oye and members of the national working committee of APGA, we hereby disassociate our great party from a kangaroo judgement in one suit E/291m/2017 Mike Aloke & Ors before Hon Justice A.R Ozoemena of the High Court of Enugu State purportedly obtained this morning against the leadership of the party, directing INEC to recognize one Martin Agbaso as the national chairman of APGA…”
Barrister Obi Okoye further called on the members of APGA to note that “the purported judgement obtained this morning from the High Court of Enugu State by the same group of expelled members was obtained through fraudulent concealment, deceit to court and criminal misrepresentation of material facts”.
The APGA national publicity secretary, therefore, advised the members of the party to ignore what he described as “these unbridled acts of provocation as the leadership of the party is on top of the situation…”
Our political correspondent reports that Chief Agbaso and his team have immediately swung into action to start the mobilisation of the party, to ensure that APGA does not lose any momentum in its resolve to retain Anambra State in the November 18 election and to move ahead to sweep the entire South East in 2019.
These crises are brewing in APGA at a time of growing calls on the Anambra electorate to pay greater attention to the quality of candidates in the forthcoming gubernatorial election rather than on whatever the parties might promise or represent.
Meanwhile, prominent citizens and stakeholders in the politics of Anambra State have continued to warn APGA members and their leaders against what is generally being seen as their complacency and undue display of unmerited confidence.
This is manifested in the way the party, which has been generally regarded as “nke anyi” (our own), is losing steam, due to what many see as a lack of seriousness on the part of the leadership of the party.
Mr George Dike, a prominent quantity surveyor and a political stakeholder in Anambra politics, warned that “the era of APGA bu nke anyi must extinguish”.
According to the Minna-based professional who is never far from the local politics of his Anambra State home, “the political barometer is measured on the scale of the greatest good for the largest number of the people”.
Dike warned that, “we must redefine our goals and determine whether present APGA is doing so; if not let the template be recast and let us select or elect those who will be fanatical for our welfare”.
Mr. Chike Maduekwe, a prominent Anambra-born lawyer who is also an experienced stakeholder in the politics of APGA and Anambra State, warned that what he described as the “ochanja market style of party administration will only lead to an unmitigated political disaster for Igbo people”.
